Biography

Davy was born atPenzanceinCornwallon
17 December 1778. The parish register ofMadron(the
parish church) records ‘Humphry Davy, son of Robert Davy, baptized at Penzance,
January 22nd, 1779.’ Robert Davy was a wood-carver at Penzance, who pursued
his art rather for amusement than profit. As the representative of an old
family (monuments to his ancestors inLudgvan
Church date as far back as 1635), he became possessor of a modest patrimony.
His wife, Grace Millet, came of an old but no longer wealthy family. Her
parents died within a few hours of each other from malignant fever, whereupon
Grace and her two sisters were adopted by John Tonkin, an eminent surgeon in
Penzance. Robert Davy and his wife became the parents of five children — two
boys, Humphry, the eldest, andJohn,
and three girls. In Davy's childhood the family moved from Penzance toVarfell,
their family estate in Ludgvan. Davy's boyhood was spent partly with his
parents and partly with Tonkin, who placed him at a preparatory school kept by
a Mr. Bushell, who was so much struck with the boy's progress that he
persuaded the father to send him to a better school. Davy was at an early age
placed at the Penzance Grammar School, then under the care of the Rev. J. C.
Coryton. Numerous anecdotes show that Davy was a precocious boy, possessing a
remarkable memory and being singularly rapid in acquiring knowledge of books.
He was especially attracted by the ‘Pilgrim's
Progress,’ and he delighted in reading history. When but eight years
of age he would collect a number of boys, and standing on a cart in the
market-place address them on the subject of his latest reading. He delighted
in the folklore of this remote district, and became, as he himself tells us, a
‘tale-teller.’ The ‘applause of my companions,’ he says, ‘was my recompense
for punishments incurred for being idle.’ These conditions developed a love of
poetry and the composition of verses and ballads.

At the same time Davy acquired a taste for experimental science. This was
mainly due to a member of theSociety
of FriendsnamedRobert
Dunkin, a saddler and a man of original mind and of the most varied
acquirements. Dunkin constructed for himself an electrical machine,voltaic
piles, andLeyden
jars, and made models illustrative of the principles of mechanics. By the
aid of these appliances he instructed Davy in the rudiments of science. As
professor at theRoyal
Institution, Davy repeated many of the ingenious experiments which he had
learned from his Quaker instructor. From the Penzance school Davy went in 1793
toTruro,
and finished his education under the Rev. Dr. Cardew, who, in a letter toDavies
Gilbert, says: ‘I could not discern the faculties by which he was
afterwards so much distinguished.’ Davy says himself: ‘I consider it fortunate
I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of
study. … What I am I made myself.’[5]

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